Steve Case, co-founder of AOL and Revolution, (center) presents Mike Farmer (far right) and the rest of the Leap.It team with a $100,000 check for winning the Rise of the Rest pitch competition Thursday.
KANSAS CITY— Leap.it, a KC-based search site that wants to make searching the web more social and visual, took home $100,000 from the Rise of the Rest tour Thursday.
The pitch competition, which was part of the Big Kansas City afternoon slate, is a part of Rise of the Rest, a regional bus tour to highlight and celebrate Midwest startup communities.
Thanks to our sponsor
“People questioned if a company from KC can compete with likes of Google,” Farmer said after he accepted the check at the Big Happy party after Big KC. “If we can turn KC into a sounding board we can do it.
“The amount of people that have been involved in that journey has been amazing. We want to continue to build out.”
Along with the $100,000 investment from Case, Leap.it also won a trip to pitch at the 2015 SXSW Startup Village in March for the chance to win even more funding.
The judge included Case, Big KC speakers Gary Shapiro of CEA; Kimberly Bryant of Black Girls Code; author and entrepreneur Sarah Granger; and Robb Heineman, CEO of Sporting KC.
The ten Kansas City finalists included Briefcase, DayReel, FitBark, Keyzio, Leap.it, PayIt, ShotTracker, Sink Cycle, VeriQuik and Venture360.
Case praised all ten take pitched.
“There were ten great companies out there,” he said. “if you’re an angel investor, I hope you find them (and invest with them) if you are a journalist, I hope you promote them and if you’re a Kansas Citian you should support them.”
Earlier in the day, Case toured Kansas City startup hubs like the Kauffman Foundation, the Kansas City Startup Village and other startups like MindMixer and EyeVerify.
The Rise of the Rest continues Friday in St. Louis where 10 area startups, including former KC company myEDmatch, will pitch.
Follow the Rise of the Rest’s Kansas City stop firsthand through social media:
